21. The Sinner
Afrustrated scream leaves my lips, as I pace back and forth outside of the old, crumbling wood barn that, at some point in time, must have housed horses. The faint smell of the animals still lingers, even though it looks like they have been long gone for a while. The silence and waning night reminds me that we can’t stay much longer, without risking everyone who’s with me on this fool’s errand. I’m a fucking idiot who fell for what could have been a disastrous trap.
The child is gone or was never here to begin with, and Peter Mercier played us for a fool even as he was dying. Asshole. If I could, I would bring him back to life, only to kill him a second time, even more painfully, for wasting our time and limited resources. I’m starting to feel like a weighed-down albatross is wrapping itself around my neck, slowly choking the life out of me.
After we murdered him and left the Mercier residence, Sarah stayed behind, tied up and playing the role of a convincing victim for the Brotherhood to find. The woman has a spine made of steel, and balls bigger than any man I have ever met. Abe and I took the men with us, and headed straight to the old Rothesay horse farm outside of the city, in hopes of finding my unknown nephew. Yet when we scoured every inch of this place, we found no evidence of anyone being here recently, and certainly no child and his mother awaiting a rescue. Frustration and rage are mounting inside of me, with all the lies and betrayals I am constantly facing. Will I survive or put the men I love in further danger? When will I see Sammy again? When I can finally rest, I am so bone-weary tired.
The muted sound of a twig snapping has me whirling around, gun drawn, and ready to take down anyone who tries to harm me, only to be confronted by Abe’s shocked face, and his hands rising at his sides in placation. “Easy, Atasi! It’s just me, baby.”
Fuck, I am seeing monsters and villains everywhere I look. I can’t go on much more like this.I slowly lower the weapon and return it to the waistband of my pants, feeling guilty and strung tight for almost shooting him.
Jesus, fuck. I have to get myself under control.I’m ready to jump right out of my skin at the slightest sound. I hear the whisper of Sammy’s soothing and confident voice in my head, instructing me to breathe and center myself, and finally, some of the tension starts to leave my shoulders.
Where are you, Sammy? I need you now more than ever. I can’t do this without you.I let my head hang forward on my neck, feeling the sadness starting to climb once again inside of me, at all that has been taken away from me. When? When will this finally all end? Is it when the Brotherhood takes my life? They tried that already, and fate intervened. Here I am, alive and doing what I can to repay them for their cruelty. The blood that soaks my hands is more than skin deep; it stains my very soul. I will never get its crimson tinge away from me now.
Yet it’s not enough, not nearly enough. I can’t stop, won’t stop, until everyone who means something to me is free. Until the Order loses all their power, and the world comes tumbling down around them. Even then, I don’t know if I will be able to stop. Something insidious now lives deep inside of me, carving me up and leaving me bleeding from the inside out, and it craves death and destruction, like a drug addict would a hit of their favorite fix. How will I confine it once there is no one left to kill?
“I’m sorry, Abe. I… I, fuck, I’m frustrated and worried that we haven’t found them.” He lengthens his stride and comes right up to me, wrapping me in his thick arms and squeezing me tightly in his embrace. My head automatically tucks itself against his wide, powerful chest, so I can press my ear against it, and listen to his steady heartbeat. His scent and the heat from his body lull me into a temporary false sense of peace. Peace. He brings me a temporary reprieve from all the death that surrounds me, even as I know his soul is just as tainted as mine. Maybe that is what links us; we are both damaged, with dark needs that we struggle to control.
How I wish we didn’t have to live in this world, that we could just be happy, the two of us together, but we can’t. As long as Sammy and Zeke are still out there somewhere, being held against their will, it’s as if pieces of us are missing, and we can’t feel joy, not even at the realization that we are here together. He will always miss the other side of his soul, and I will miss mine. Yet for a brief moment, we can find comfort with each other.
“I know, Dinah. I should have known my father was lying to us, even with his death hanging over his head. We will find the child, and we’ll get Sammy and… Zeke… back.” He struggles to get Zeke’s name past his lips, and my head tilts back until I can see his expression clearly. His amber eyes shine with a golden hue in the predawn light. He’s so fucking rugged and handsome, so different from the other two. My pulse begins to speed up just looking at him.
“Is that what you want, Abe? Do you want Zeke back?” My heart clenches painfully, waiting for his response. A part of me, the reasonable part, knows that, of course, he wants Zeke back. He’s loved him all his life. Even with his betrayal and the rage he’s feeling, those bonds between them would still hold tight. How could they not? He was his, long before he ever became mine.
I watch his Adam’s apple move up and down as his jaw clenches, trying to restrain himself, to keep himself together at my question. The pain across his features makes me want to take it back, but a part of me needs to hear the answer. “I don’t know what to say, Atasi. I refuse to lose you. Those days that you lay trapped in the coma were the worst of my life. I. Can’t. Lose. You.”
He enunciates each word as if it pains him greatly even to speak them. His large, rough hand glides up my face, cradling it. “I can’t give him up either, Dinah. As much as I want to kill him, and I do, I have always loved him. Could you give up Sammy if the roles were reversed?”
There is not even a moment of hesitation in my mind. I could never give up Sammy, not even if it meant my own life. He is a part of me, his soul intertwined with mine. Everything I am, and everything I will ever be, is not only thanks to him, but intricately woven with his essence. He is the golden threads that bind us together. The thin pieces of liquid gold which fill all the cracks in my soul. I cannot live without my soul, therefore, I cannot live without my Sammy. The reality is that I can’t ask that of Abe, either. I can’t be selfish and demand that he allow me to kill the man that he loves, even while praying that Sammy is still alive and will return to me.
Deep down, the truth is I am not even sure I would be able to kill Zeke, regardless of his actions. A part of me has already forgiven him, knowing that he did what he had to to save Abe, and yet he’s also still protecting Sammy, and my brother’s child. He’s lost everything too. How heavy his heart and soul must be. How he must long for death, without the missing piece of his soul. When the moment comes, will I be able to stab him like he did me?Would I have been able to make the difficult choice he did? Could I have killed him or Abe to save Sammy? I don’t know.
“No,” the word is ripped from the deepest parts of my soul—the soul that remembers Ezekiel Rothesay as a child, the way he was always gentle with me, and treated me as if I were indeed his princess—his precious Snow White.
A ragged breath leaves my lips, and the longing for a moment of peace comes back. Just one moment where I can shut my mind off, without worrying about Sammy and Zeke’s safety, the Brotherhood and the menace that they are, or even the rebels and their expectations that I lead them to freedom from the oppression of the Order. All these demands on me, drowning me and crushing me with their weight. Just one moment where I can feel free and loved. Peace. I crave a moment of peace.
“What do you need, Atasi?” Abe’s husky voice causes shivers to rise along the surface of my skin, and a deep hunger is unleashed within me. A naked hunger that courses through every part of my body, scorching its way along my limbs and invading all of my molecules, until even the tips of my fingers and hair vibrate with it.
The hunger gnaws at me, demanding and sharp, wanting, no begging, to be sated. It demands satisfaction. It petitions that I give in to its demands, that I break against him like the ocean tide does against the shore. It is restless, powerful, and all-consuming. It wants him, and nothing will stop it from having him.
His eyes flare with something intense in their amber pools; a mix of desire, sadness, and danger—all intertwined until they’ve made up what he is—what he has always been, my Abe, as much as he will ever be Zeke’s. In the depths of his storming eyes lays the promise that he will never leave me, and that he belongs to me now. Mine.
My heart batters at the cages surrounding it in the confines of my chest, the blood rushing through my body like liquid lava, heating and setting me on fire. Every part of me waiting in anticipation of the joy, and depravity, that Abe can bring me with his strength and touch. All the things I crave deep down inside of myself, in the places I had only reserved for my Sammy. To be used for his pleasure. To be brought to the brink of death, and ripped back to his side because he demands it of me. I want him with a need that can no longer be ignored, and I will have him. Every part of him, his mind, heart, and soul, will belong to me from this moment forward. He will always be mine.
“Everything.” The word slips from my mouth as I reach forward and lift his hand to my neck, never tearing my eyes from his. “Make it hurt, Abe. Make me forget, even if just for a moment.” My words are husky and full of intent. I allow him to see the need and the darkness within me, and call out to him with it, tempting him like a siren’s call to come and devour me.
His eyes widen, and nostrils flare, a beast scenting his prey, and then his mouth is descending with ferocity against my lips, biting and sucking, forcing my lips to open wide to his plunder. He takes and takes, his tongue lashing against mine, consuming me and still demanding more. Demanding that I give him my very soul for his own use, while promising me pain, sin, depravity, and so much more.
One hand digs through the hair at my nape, clenching painfully in the strands, while the other tightens around my hip, holding me to him as if I would dare to try to rip away from the predator before me. That is what he is, a beast that I have unleashed with my words, one that will provide me with little or no mercy, as he takes what he wants from me, and I am here for it. All of it. I want him freed from whatever chains hold him constrained and in check, and ready to use me for his own pleasure in any way he sees fit.
He pries his mouth from mine, his eyes searching out the space around them even as I struggle to get air within my lungs. A part of me wants to beg him to keep consuming me, to take my very breath away, so that I will feel nothing but the overwhelming satisfaction of being at his mercy. Still, I hold my tongue and wait to see what he will do next—wait to see if he has indeed slipped his chains and will give me what I want, no, what I need.
“Dinah, I need you to remember that I love you, that you are mine, because I’m about to fuck you, baby, like I don’t. Like you’re my dirty whore to be used for my own pleasure. Fuck, I hope I don’t end up killing you in the process.”
He doesn’t wait for my reply, using the firm grip on the back of my neck and in my hair to push me forward, almost causing me to stumble. We keep moving, both breathing loudly in the silent space of the old barn, until we reach an old horse stall. Using his other hand, he slams the stall door open on its slider, and a menacing groan leaves the rotting wood and metal structure. The stall is empty, cleaned out of hay and its contents, except for a few discarded leather straps hanging on a rusted nail, the old crumbling cement floor greeting my eyes as Abe uses his grip to force me to my knees in front of him. All the softness from moments ago is now gone, and in its place, the beast that lives within him has taken over. Fuck, he’s going to make it hurt. My hands shake with the thought, and I clench them tightly into fists.
“Take my cock out, Dinah, and spit on him.” His crude words force my empty core to clench, and I can feel the proof of my desire, already slicking my folds and dampening my underwear. I reach forward, allowing my fingers to trail against the material of his dark pants, and over the prominent bulge that hides behind it, waiting for me to unleash it from its prison. When I don’t move fast enough to comply with his demand, he yanks back on my hair, forcing a cry of both pain and pleasure to flee my lips. “Now, slut.”
I unbutton his pants, and my tense fingers pull down his zipper, the sound loud in the otherwise silent space. The only other sound is of my ragged breathing, which gives him a good indication of how he’s affecting me and how much I need this. How much I need him to make it hurt and make me beg for more, and I will beg, because I’m what he calls me, his slut, his whore. In this moment, I want to be all of those things more than I want to breathe.
I need him, all of him. I need him to make me feel alive while helping me forget all the parts of me that are damaged and dead—the parts of me that I barely hold onto, and that threaten to cause me to lose my grip on my sanity. I need Abe like the sun needs the moon, always knowing it will be ready and waiting to follow it on its course.
I slip my fingers inside of the parted material and wrap them around his warm, stiff length, pulling him out, and he throbs in my palm. He’s pure velvet wrapped over hard marble. Long and thick, with pronounced veins trailing from his base, nestled neatly in trimmed dark hair. The mushroom head is swollen and already dripping beads of creamy precum from its tip. They slide down and meet my fingers, coating them in the sticky warmth.
My mouth waters with the need to take him deep in my throat, but a yank on my hair has me obeying his request and spitting on the head of his cock. A groan leaves his lips as my warm saliva slips down his long length. “Tighten your grip and stroke me from root to tip.” Again, he pulls on my hair to force me to comply with his request, but he has no need to. I would do it willingly.
I stroke him, twisting my hold and applying pressure as pleased moans leave his lips. My other hand descends inside the parted folds of his pants and caresses his testicles, rolling them between my fingers gently and reverently. “Suck on them, slut. Roll them in your mouth,” he demands.
I press my face right against the base of his cock, his musky, rich scent overwhelming my senses even as my hand keeps moving along his thick length, my thumb stroking along the slit of his engorged head. My tongue slips out and licks the base of his cock, slowly sliding down until my lips are softly pressed against his testicles. I lap at them with my wet tongue over and over, until they are dripping from my saliva, before slipping one between my lips and giving it a deep suck. The sounds leaving Abe are spurring me on, making me clench my thighs even as my knees dig against the hard ground.
“Suck, slut. Take them both inside of your mouth. Show me what a little whore you are, Atasi,” Abe growls, the sound almost animalistic in its timbre. I obey his command, sucking and opening my mouth wider until I can take them both inside of its depth, even as my jaw and lips protest the treatment. Saliva slips down the corners of my mouth, drenching my chin and sliding down the column of my neck. My knees begin to ache, but I don’t dare to utter a protest, unwilling to make this stop now, not until I have had my fill of him.
Abe pulls back from my lips, grabbing his cock by the base and forcing it into my mouth with his vicious hold on my hair. He doesn’t give me a chance to acclimate to his large size, hitting the back of my throat and still continuing to thrust forward, until I’m gasping for air and choking on his cock as it makes its way down my throat. “That’s it, baby, swallow me down. Choke on my cock, Dinah. You’re such a dirty slut, wanting me to fuck this tight throat.”
He continues in a ruthless rhythm, never giving me a moment to catch my breath. He fucks my face hard and without mercy or regret. His fingers circle my neck, gripping and tightening, constricting my limited airway even further, until I’m desperate for oxygen and try to pull away from his grasp. Instead of releasing me, his grip only tightens further, forcing his cock so deep into my throat that my nose is pressed against the soft, dark hairs on his pelvis. Tears slide down my face to meet with the combination of spit and his precum, making a mess of me.
“So pretty when you cry. You’re fucking beautiful when you can’t breathe, baby.”
His words spur me on to keep taking his punishing treatment. My clit throbs painfully as my legs tighten relentlessly, trying and failing to get some friction. The need is rising inside of me to explode. I’m so turned on right now; my wetness is soaking my underwear and the crotch of my pants. It’s too much and, at the same time, not enough. I need more. I need everything that he can give me. I need to explode all over him as he covers me in his cum.
He pulls out of my mouth, his grip on my neck releasing, and I take a dramatic inhale of air, the sound ragged and desperate to my pounding ears. He grabs the base of his cock and slaps the length across my face before doing it again and again, spreading more wetness on my facial features with his slobbered length. Fuck, I don’t know why I am enjoying this. I should be pissed that he’s literally making me look like a disheveled whore on the ground, but it’s what I want, what I crave. His depravity, his sins, his loss of control.
“Get up and strip out of your clothes. Bend over, grab your ankles, and hold on, Atasi, ’cause I mean to use you up.” I rush to comply with his orders, ripping my shirt over my head and discarding my bra, until my breasts are loose and my nipples pucker in the cool air. I place the gun down at my feet, even as I slip my underwear and pants down my legs, and step out of my boots to remove them. The cool night air hits my limbs and has goosebumps rising on my flesh, even though a scorching heat is growing from within my very core, and I feel like I will combust.
Abe moves away from me, his cock bobbing against his stomach while I watch from the corner of my eye, as he reaches for one of the long pieces of abandoned leather against the stall wall. My breath catches in my chest as he grasps it tightly in his fist, a sadistic grin crossing his features that has the air stuttering as it tries to leave my lungs. Jesus fuck, he looks possessed, demonic even. Instead of fearing him, the temperature in my body ratchets up even further as my blood soars in my veins. A bead of sweat drips down between my breasts, and a moan escapes my lips, as he returns to his place behind me.
My body stretches to accommodate the pose he wants me in as I bend forward, legs straight, and grab my ankles. Pain in my side makes itself known from my injury, but I ignore it. His feet push against mine, forcing me to open my stance even further until I spread wider, and I know he’s getting a perfect view of my drenched pussy and puckered hole. The anticipation of which one he will use first, along with the blood rushing to my head, has me swaying on my feet. Fuck, fuck, fuck.
“You want to be my good girl, don’t you, Atasi? Do you want to please me, baby? This pretty, pink cunt is mine to use, isn’t it?”
“Yessss,” I hiss as my body shakes with desire for whatever he is going to do next.
A whooshing sound rents the air before the sting of pain arrests my right asscheek. Two more lashes land against my skin, one above and one below the first, until my skin burns from the pain. “Look at how pretty your skin looks with stripes, baby. We need to make the other side just as pretty.”
He doesn’t hesitate, whipping me on my other cheek with three lashes before rubbing his fingers into my hot skin to soothe it. “Just a few more, baby, and then I’m going fuck this dripping pussy.”
He lashes the top of my thighs, both my asscheeks, and my lower back, as pain sears through me, mixing with how turned on I am. He drops the leather at my feet, and before I can even lift my head, he slams into my pussy, filling me with one thick thrust that has a scream tearing from inside of me and vibrating in the stall.
There is no gentleness in his actions; he fucks me hard and mean, using my body for his own purposes. A small smile tilts my lips, realizing he really did mean his words and there is a chance he could kill me in the process. I would welcome death at his hands, if it meant I could die surrounded with this form of ecstasy. One of his hands grabs onto my hair, forcing my head back to stare at the roof of the barn, while the other delivers harsh and painful slaps to my breasts and pulls on my nipples.
HOLY FUCK! The mixture of the pain coming from different parts of my body, and how rough and powerful he’s being inside of my core, has me so close to exploding without ever touching my clit. Screams leave my lips even as I try to swallow them as he keeps fucking me, using me, without a hint of mercy, and my body clenches around his long, thick length.
“You were made to take my cock, Dinah. Look at how this pretty pussy clenches around me. I wonder, will your ass do the same? Hmmm, baby? Do you want me to fuck your ass?”
“Yes! Yes! Yes!” I scream until my voice is almost hoarse, and I sound like I’m both dying and living the best moment of my life. He pulls out of my throbbing core, rubbing the head of his cock over and over against my clit, even as my legs threaten to give out on me. My breath leaves me in loud pants, and my head swims from the euphoria. Right now, Abe is the best kind of drug, the only kind I want to overdose on.
“Pick up the piece of leather and put it between your teeth. I don’t want you to make a sound as I fuck this tight hole.” He pushes me to my hands and knees, and kneels behind me. Both his hands come to my burning asscheeks and spread them wide, before I both hear and feel him spit down on my puckered hole. “I’m not going to prep you, slut. You’ll take me… just… like… this.”
He slams inside of my puckered hole, and I bite down on the rough leather strip to stop my scream. The pain and burning are instantaneous, and I almost beg him to stop as he bottoms out inside of me, but then his fingers find my clit, and they start moving in circles, and my body tightens once again. Going back up on the rollercoaster ride of emotions between pain and pleasure, all while he takes from me everything that he wants. More, I need more. I need him to take from me until there is nothing left of me. Until he and I are one, with no beginning and no end.
“What a good girl you are, letting your daddy fuck your tight ass. Look at how you swallow my cock, baby. So warm and tight, fuck, this feels like heaven, Dinah.”
He keeps up a punishing rhythm, thrusting into my ass so hard that the sound of flesh smacking flesh combines with our harsh pants, and I try desperately to swallow every moan. His body’s momentum slamming into mine has me shifting forward, my knees scraping against the rough, dirty ground as they try to get away from his punishing strokes, but he’s relentless and just pulls me right back.
“Oh my God, fuck, fuck,” I mumble, with the leather clenched tightly between my teeth, the sound muffled and disoriented. A lightning current starts underneath my skin, traveling through my body, leaving heat and wild sensations behind. The hair on my arms and neck stands on end, and my gasping breath becomes labored as my head spins. My whole body tightens painfully, and the waves of euphoria race against my skin. Every nerve lightens up and sizzles under his continued force, as he rings every last drop of my orgasm from me before slamming one final time, and a loud roar exits his mouth as he fills my ass with his cum.
“Ohmyfuckinggod!” The string of words crosses my lips, even as my heart threatens to burst inside of my chest.
His body drapes over mine, covering me in his heat and smell, as he reaches forward and rips the piece of leather from between my clenched teeth, and replaces it with his lips on mine. His moans mix with my own, as I feel his cock still hard and deep inside my ass. Finally, when I don’t think I can survive without oxygen, he pulls back from the kiss and slides his cock from my ass, and a whimper escapes me. Fuck, that hurts, but it’s a pain I would be willing to experience again and again if it meant I could also feel this good.
I can taste blood in my mouth from where my lip has split with his treatment. His tongue traces over the outline of my lips, licking it up, and a deep groan leaves his throat, and my longing and fear ratchets up again with the belief that he might actually eat me. There’s an unstable look in his eyes, as if just one little nudge will send him careening off of the edge and into the unknown dark abyss, where he would rule as its psychotic king. It excites me, even makes me want to push him just to see if I’m right, and if I would survive.
His hand rises and wraps around my throat, instantly cutting off my air as he stares deep into my eyes. “You are mine, do you hear me, Atasi? If you ever think of leaving me, I’ll take your life before I fuck your dead corpse, and follow you into hell.”
Well, I guess as romantic words go, those are pretty effective. I don’t bother to reply to him, not that I could with how he’s stopping all my air from flowing. After watching some of the things he did with Zeke to other women, I’ve no doubt that he would do just that. He is a beast wrapped in a beautiful package. My beast, mine to command, even when I’m on my knees for him.
I have no intention of leaving him, not now, not ever. If I belong to him, he is also mine, and that’s all that matters. We are both still missing parts of ourselves, but soon, we will have them back.